A simple Warrior Lord, and a perfect two-drop in
any B/W aggro deck. This will be a strong play
in Mardu Constructed decks, no doubt, but I have
doubts about its viability in an expanded
format. Warriors are a common enough creature
type, but usually in red and green. This is a
black-and-white Warrior. White usually gets
Soldiers, and Black's thuggish types are split
among Warrior, Rogue, and Soldier. Of course,
those two colors will get plenty of Warriors in
Tarkir, because that's the Mardu's theme, but
when Tarkir rotates out of Constructed, the
Chief will find itself relegated to Modern and
Casual formats, which will likely have better
chiefs. Enjoy your B/W aggro in this block,
folks, while you can.
I have to say, I was a little surprised by the
way Chief of the Edge was designed. Not in a
mechanical sense; you could predict that a set
whose flavor is inspired by the Mongols and
other historical steppe peoples would have
tribal elements. Rather, I was a little taken
aback by the colors in its mana cost. Usually
Warriors have been associated with red, and
Soldiers with white. It also confuses between
the Mardu and the Abzan for people who may not
have the watermarks memorized, but that's a
slightly different problem. Perhaps things will
become clearer as more of the block is released.
As tribal cards go, Chief of the Edge is decent.
The power bonus is pretty much in line with what
we've come to expect, and it's marginally more
efficient than usual. The best thing about it is
probably speed - many lords cost three mana, and
Chief of the Edge can thus sometimes steal a
march even on other tribal decks. Don't forget
to look back to Lorwyn block for cards like
Stonehewer Giant (assuming you don't mind
putting Lorwyn-style paintings next to modern
digital-style "yaaaah sword raised!!1"
paintings).
Today's card of the day is Chief of the Edge
which is a two mana Black and White 3/2 that
gives other warriors you control +1/+0. This is
a solid foundation to build a Black/White
warrior build around and the theme could
potentially gain traction in competitive formats
as the block develops. There are nineteen
other Black and White warrior creatures in
Standard currently plus several support cards,
with the Black/Green Kin-Tree Invocation being
of particular value. A 3/2 for two is
strong and the effect is useful, so it will see
play and possibly help warriors reach the higher
tiers.
In Limited this is a very solid creature for a
deck using Black and White even without other
warriors and it is an easy second or third pick
in Booster. For Sealed there is no reason
not to include this when using the colors and
any other warriors gain value for the potential
offensive boost this offers.
A 3/2 creature for 2 mana is pretty good to
begin with. Any other ability it has is a bonus.
With a small group of warriors, this guy can be
an important part of an aggressive deck. The
only question to me is whether or not there are
enough good black and white warriors to make a
deck around this guy. Sometimes build-around
cards like this make us want to play sub-optimal
cards just to get full use of their special
ability.
Also, with morph currently in standard, there
are going to be an enormous amount of 2 power
creatures running around that can stall your
warriors in their tracks without some help.
While those cards exist, that's just another
piece you have to have to make this work.
Nitpicking aside, there's a lot of potential for
the Chief. A 3/2 for 2 is still good.
